Kindles and E Readers etc:

[saxonaxe]

If you have arrived here via 'Out and About' I have no need to explain.
Questions...
Does the Kindle need to be Internet connected to allow it to be read?
Would I have to sign some sort of contract as Mobile phone users do? ( I use pay as you go, £10 lasts me 6 months + and occasionally I just buy another Sim card thing to change the phone number.
How would I get a kindle book bought from Amazon onto the Reader?
Once purchased are the K/R's free from adverts, up dates, offers etc: or are they purely for reading purposes?
Recommendations for a simple, easily read and operated E Reader or Kindle gratefully received, £150 or under ish..

 

[Pattree]

You probably know most of this but here goes anyway:

My very basic Kindle works through our existing WiFi for downloading books.
Once you have a book loaded you don’t need to be connected to the net. You can keep hundreds of books on your Kindle and once they are there you don’t need connection. You can also store them with Amazon but obviously you need the WiFi to get them back when you want them.

I have 187 books downloaded into my Kindle - no connection needed for them.
I also have several hundred more up in the sky.

There are adverts - for more books but that’s it. If you’ve just read the first book of a trilogy you are likely to be offered the rest.

The basic Kindle are the ones with E-ink screens. Just black and white. No illustrations (on mine). Mine isn’t even “Paperwhite.” That is a much whiter screen. Mine has black writing on a grey screen and that’s fine.

I don’t use reading glasses but at night my eyes get tired so I increase the text size a little and that helps.

You can change the font of a whole book.
You can change the line spacing for easier reading.
You can change the size of the writing and you can change the “weight” of the font.

I use a dyslexic font on the second to fourth smallest size with the tightest line spacing but with a heavy weight. Especially when I’m tired.

I love highlighting, and making notes which you can do as you read.

You can look up (almost) any word in the text in the on board dictionary right where you are on the page and then keep on reading.

The really old ones had a button that you pressed to change the page and another for digging into your library. Mine is touch screen - still very basic, nothing like as sophisticated as a phone screen but very easy to use. The downside is that flies landing on the screen can turn a page forward or backwards. They seem to be reading quicker than me. It doesn’t happen often.

I have the Kindle app on my phone synchronised with my Kindle reader, in effect I have two Kindles with the same library.

Before you buy new check out what refurbed readers are available. They will try hard to sell you an upmarket tablet reader but just tell them you aren’t paying for one.

Like any other tool, you will need to learn how to use it but once you’ve found your way through you’ll love it.
I used to take the same weight of books as clothes etc on holiday. Now my library fits in a side pocket of my trousers and is repeated on my phone.

Google “refurbished Kindle” And see what you can get for about £30!

There are loads of free books available and Kindle versions are usually much cheaper than even a second hand book.

As a constant reader, I can’t recommend the tool enough.

 

[saxonaxe]

I love highlighting, making notes and recording my reactions which you can do as you read.

They have keyboards?

 

[Pattree]

Refurbished Kindle. Because I can’t add a link when editing.

 

[Pattree]

They have keyboards?

A very basic sort of on screen keyboard yes indeed.
You can tap on the store (while connected) and type in a title or an author. That’s how you get new books.

 

[crosslandkelly]

I have an original kindle paper white which is good, but my kindle fire is much better. The fire is more of a tablet, and I'm able to download films and tv on to it. No subsciptions are needed. One word of advice, if you plan to use one while out camping, get a waterproof cover and a decent power bank for it.

 

[Broch]

I have an original kindle paper white which is good, but my kindle fire is much better. The fire is more of a tablet, and I'm able to download films and tv on to it. No subsciptions are needed. One word of advice, if you plan to use one while out camping, get a waterproof cover and a decent power bank for it.

It's worth pointing out to @saxonaxe the difference in power consumption of things like the more basic paper white and ink technology Kindles compared to a Kindle Fire. If you don't need a tablet (and it doesn't sound like saxonaxe does) then you can camp for a couple of weeks without a power bank with a basic Kindle (assuming you're not reading 24/7).

 

[TeeDee]

It's worth pointing out to @saxonaxe the difference in power consumption of things like the more basic paper white and ink technology Kindles compared to a Kindle Fire. If you don't need a tablet (and it doesn't sound like saxonaxe does) then the you can camp for a couple of weeks without a power bank with a basic Kindle (assuming you're not reading 24/7).

Good Point well made - if you don't need the on-the-go connectivity , it will prolong your battery life.

( Ahhh - the nostalgia of the longevity of the Nokia brick phone.. battery life of the Sun.. )

 

[Pattree]

The Kindle Fire is good for books of illustrations and for manuals - but then so it’s my phone.

I would recommend the simplest black and white low cost device to start with. You will need a lamp to read at night just like any book but as has been said, the charge lasts so much longer than the back lit Fire.

Folk like me may say that they are wonderful but as can be seen here, they don’t suit everyone. My in-laws never did get used to them even though they tried.
My father in law electrician didn’t even like digital multimeters. I still have a beautiful leather cased device with a needle dial.

Keep it simple. Push through your early frustrations, and there will be some, and you’ll end up with something so very useful.

 

[haptalaon]

I have a second hand Kobo from CEX which cost me £18.

You can use a free computer program called Calibre to load your ebooks into, and then transfer using a cable from the computer to the Kobo.

Kobo is good because you can get books from any source. With Kindle you can only use the amazon store. By any source I mean lots of different ebook shops, as well as free places like the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg.

You don't need WiFi or an Internet connection to use the e reader when you are on the go, only at your house to download books to your computer.

I think technically I can link my Kobo to WiFi and download from their book store but ive never done it, I stick to books I can find for free.

 

[Paul_B]

Worth pointing out that most free sources of ebooks for non kindle users are out of copyright books not current, copyrighted books. This might limit what you can read.

Kindle dominate ereaders in the UK not because of Amazon, although that helps a lot, but because they got a good product right and early in the product type lifecycle. By this I mean they were one of or the first to get a good product to market with an ecosystem that is cheaper than real books and easy to use. They led the market and in the UK it is often the only ereader in high street / out of town electrical retailers these days.

If buying new you have the choice of paying a bit extra and not getting adverts so prominently.They are still present on the lockscreen only or when you finish a book to advertise other books like it or in the series.

You can read free books too but there might be some extra tricks needed possibly with calibre app as an intermediary. It should also be pointed out that to use many public library ebook borrowing services you can not use kindle or IIRC kindle fire but you need something like an android device possibly apple too. Certainly many of these are on google play store. My old county used borrowbox to loan out ebooks. There are other apps used by other county libraries.

IMHO ereaders are the best for reading novels and books without a lot of fancy graphics or photographs. I find them easier on the eye than phones or tablets. Of course you can have both tablets and ereaders and you have choice then. I find my samsung phone can be used for reading in those times you have no book or ereader to hand but have to wait for something. Where you get to in your book in the kindle app on your phone will be on your kindle once you sync them both. Very useful that.

 

[saxonaxe]

I appreciate all the advice and suggestions about this matter, I know it is all well meant and kindly offered, but having done a little research myself I realise my original thoughts about the devices were way off target. My reading at camp will still be happily satisfied by the occasional visit to the Charity shops and their 50p paper backs.
Thank you all for your help.

 

[simon-e]

Hi all,
for anyone interested you can get a lot of decent free ebooks by signing up to the daily email from this site - https://www.bookbub.com
It's all free, no spam or scams. They send a daily email with something like 10 books that are either free or a pound or so. The email actually contains a link to the book on Amazon and you purchase it from Amazon directly so it's added to your account and you can send it to your Kindle etc.. I've gathered 100s of books over the last year or 2, mostly free. You choose the genres of books you are interesting in when you sign up.
Hope it helps someone

 

[Paul_B]

I appreciate all the advice and suggestions about this matter, I know it is all well meant and kindly offered, but having done a little research myself I realise my original thoughts about the devices were way off target. My reading at camp will still be happily satisfied by the occasional visit to the Charity shops and their 50p paper backs.
Thank you all for your help.

It is good to research and decide based on that, however I was omce very uconvinced by them until I took the plunge and wasted money on one. That was what I expected it to be like but was surprised that I got over my paper book, no batteries, lofi paper book hangups purely by the way it worked and felt. It turned out to totally change my enjoyment of reading to the better.

To be fair I am not the normal reader though in that I struggle to read. As in really cannot read a paper book easily. I once worked out how many books bought and started or not but nowhere near finished. It got so bad that I either get hooked in a book and have to read it ASAP. Or I can not get past the first ferw pages. My worst performance was two weeks of not getting off the first half page.

I have since come to realise I have ADHD and perhaps that is related to it. However for me the ease in which I can get to start and stop an ebook kind of helps me read it in the way no paper page marker or page dart can do. On top of that it does it with hundreds of books too so I can read what suits my mood and get right back to the last spot read even years after I started reading it.

Part of my experience says that you just never know with ereaders. You could try it and against expectations it just works for you. It is a shame you can not try before you buy.

 

[Pattree]

@saxonaxe
I’m no evangelist and I respect your decision.
I’m a little sad but just because it works well for me.

If you know someone who has a simple one, it might be worth looking over their shoulder or having a go on it - sometime.